(aka 'Omen I' or 'Omen I: The Antichrist' or 'Omen I: The
Birthmark' or 'The Birthmark')

directed
by Richard Donner USA 1976

Now my eldest can be a real little devil sometimes, but I never
had the problems of ambassador Thorn. All joking aside - although I am not a
big horror fan this is probably my favorite of that genre. The 70's brought
a few more intelligent scare efforts than had ever been seen before with
The Omen,
The Exorcist,
The Shining and some others my feeble brain can't recall at this
time.

In The Omen director Richard Donner gets a little heavy at times with
close-ups and the bombastic score but it is perfectly fitting and timed to
the mood of the particular scene - that's what makes it a horror. On the
performances - there aren't many Peck films where I don't extol his efforts
and I've been enamored with Lee Remick since The Long, Hot Summer
(1958). Add to that some amazing support from Leo McKern, David Warner et
all. So although all those pieces fit with adept cohesiveness - it's the
David Seltzer, extensively researched, script that I would champion to the
hilt. It actually helped define a new sect of the genre - the
'religious-horror' - see - The Seventh Sign (1988) and Michael Mann's
The Keep (1983) although
The Exorcist coming out 3 years earlier deserves more credit I
suppose. Seltzer's screenwriting turned an absurd premise into a most
plausible one for all who viewed it. The good thing about this film is that
it holds up so well - it's as thought-provoking and creepy as the first time
I saw it over 25 years ago. Perhaps being that old it can rightly be
identified as a classic. Very fitting in my opinion. This is a great film -
despite, or rather 'regardless of', being a horror film. Don't let that
deter you from viewing.

ADDITION: Fox
Blu-ray
- October 08': I don't know why, but I wasn't expecting a lot from this
new transfer - surprisingly I was actually quite pleased with the way it turned out.
This 32-year old film easily surpasses the previous SD-DVD editions with
a color scheme that supports the 'CE' over the 'SE'. Detail is
extensively improved and colors, especially skin tones seem more
correct. The image has a tightness that was refreshing considering
The Omen's
age. The speckles that existed in the CE are gone and this looks like a
brand new film. Grain is visible to varying degrees and hopefully the screen
captures below can bear out the improvement in 1080P with Fox using the
MPEG4-AVC encode. I should state that my edition is part of the 4-disc
Collection (which we will be reviewing shortly), not the individual release.

Audio gets a desirable bump to Lossless DTS HD
Master 5.1 (and still keeps a mono option). Jerry Goldsmith's original score for
The Omen is one of the more memorable in horror film history. Aside from the
orchestral background we have two specific pieces written by him - "Ave
Satani" and "The Piper Dreams" with the former being undeniably
haunting and perfectly suited to the deep sense of suspense and mystique of the
netherworld that is permeated in the narrative by Donner. There is a wonderful
featurette in the extras and you can actually access the Isolated Score Track
with this new
Blu-ray. It
is also covered a lot in the new, third commentary. It
really comes to life in HD and adds another element of foreboding to the film -
one I had not felt previously. Top marks. There are optional subtitles offered.

Extras appear to include all the past
featurettes, deleted scenes and 2 commentaries - plus some new stuff - notably a
new, third, commentary with film historians Lem Dobbs, Nick Redman and Jeff
Bond. They cover a bit from the previous two discussions but also impart quite a
lot of new information and the trio seem to work well together relating how this
was the beginning of a new era of the horror genre with much on Goldsmith's
score. We also have 15 minutes with Richard Donner on The Omen in HD as
well as the aforementioned isolated score. Although not mentioned on the digipak
the extensive The Omen Legacy (running 1:41:37) is still there.

I have always been high on this film (easily
the best of the 4 'Omen' feature films made) and this
Blu-ray
does it justice. It looks and sounds great and there are more extras than any
fan could have hoped for - if you include the commentaries as separate
supplements - you have over 8 hours of extraneous stuff to indulge in. This
Blu-ray
is highly recommended!

***

ON THE SD-DVDS: I'm usually
criticizing these new 'super' editions for:

1) Their labelling - since the original
releases in 2001 was called 'Special Edition' - this new edition had to
be called 'Collector's Edition'

2) Improving the supplements
excessively and the image indiscernibly.

BUT this is a different case - Fox
have really done a great job with the transfer
and the difference in colors can easily be seen. The balance on the new
release is far superior (check skin tones below) and detail is also a
notch advanced. We can also see the original release to be a shade
cropped on all 4 sides - mostly the sides. I might not have found the
old edition's brightness boosting excessive but alongside the 2-disc
Collector's Edition it certainly looks that way now. In fact it's all
better - they have added a very adept second commentary - shuffled the
extras a little (all 5 are repeated with only 3 or 4 'new' supplements).
Overall, I'm most happy with the new image which really establishes this
2-disc, along with the cheaper price tag, as a warranted purchase. Yes,
you bet we recommend! Great film, great looking, solid extras. There is
also a 5.1 track that sounded very good, although not 'knock your socks
off' good, just adept and buoyant at the right times.

NOTE: I guess I should complain about
something - the new menus are extravagant and damaging to the
intelligent expression of the film. The more obvious 'horror effects'
(in this case a shaky camera) were not necessary in the film and have no
place in the animated menus. Ridiculous bitching on my part -> most
certainly.